I Am That - Person, Witness and the Supreme

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From " I Am That " -- Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

 

Chapter 79 - Person, Witness and the Supreme

 

Questioner: We have a long history of drug-taking behind us, mostly drugs

of the consciousness-expanding variety. They gave us the experience of

other states of consciousness, high and low, and also the conviction, that

drugs are unreliable and, at best, transitory and, at worst, destructive of

organism and personality. We are in search of better means for developing

consciousness and transcendence. We want the fruits of our search to stay

with us and enrich our lives, instead of turning to pale memories and

helpless regrets. If by the spiritual we mean self-investigation and

development, our purpose in coming to India is definitely spiritual. The

happy hippy stage is behind us; we are serious now and on the move. We

know there is reality to be found, but we do not know how to find and hold

on to it. We need no convincing, only guidance. Can you help us?

 

Maharaj: You do not need help, only advice. What you seek is already in

you. Take my own case. I did nothing for my realization. My teacher told

me that the reality is within me; I looked within and found it there,

exactly as my teacher told me. To see reality is as simple as to see one's

face in a mirror. Only the mirror must be clear and true. A quiet mind,

undistorted by desires and fears, free from ideas and opinions, clear on

all the levels, is needed to reflect the reality. Be clear and quiet --

alert and detached, all else will happen by itself.

 

Q: You had to make your mind clear and quiet before you could realize the

truth. How did you do it?

 

M: I did nothing. It just happened. I lived my life, attending to my

family's needs. Nor did my Guru do it. It just happened, as he said it will.

 

Q: Things do not just happen. There must be a cause for everything.

 

M: All that happens is the cause of all that happens. Causes are

numberless; the idea of a sole cause is an illusion.

 

Q: You must have been doing something specific -- some meditation or Yoga.

How can you say that realization will happen on its own?

 

M: Nothing specific. I just lived my life.

 

Q: I am amazed!

 

M: So was I. But what was there to be amazed at? My teacher's words came

true. So what? He knew me better than I knew myself, that is all. Why

search for causes? In the very beginning I was giving some attention and

time to the sense 'I am', but only in the beginning. Soon after my Guru

died, I lived on. His words proved to be true. That is all. It si all

one process. You tend to separate things in time and then look for causes.

 

Q: What is your work now? What are you doing?

 

M: You imagine being and doing as identical. It is not so. The mind and

the body move and change and cause other minds and bodies to move and

change and that is called doing, action. I see that it is in the nature of

action to create further action, like fire that continues by burning. I

neither act nor cause others to act; I am timelessly aware of what is going

on.

 

Q: In your mind, or also in other minds?

 

M: There is only one mind, which swarms with ideas; 'I am this, I am that,

this is mine, that is mine'. I am not the mind, never was, nor shall be.

 

Q: How did the mind come into being?

 

M: The world consists of matter, energy and intelligence. They manifest

themselves in many ways. Desire and imagination create the world and

intelligence reconciles the two and causes a sense of harmony and peace.

To me it all happens; I am aware, yet unaffected.

 

Q: You cannot be aware, yet unaffected. There is a contradiction in terms.

Perception is change. Once you have experienced a sensation, memory will

not allow you to return to the former state.

 

M: Yes, what is added to memory cannot be erased easily. But it can surely

be done and in fact, I am doing it all the time. Like a bird on its wings,

I leave no footprints.

 

Q: Has the witness name and form, or is it beyond these?

 

M: The witness is merely a point in awareness. It has no name and form.

It is like the reflection of the sun in a drop of dew. The drop of dew has

name and form, but the little point of light is caused by the sun. The

clearness and smoothness of the drop is a necessary condition but not

sufficient by itself. Similarly clarity and silence of the mind are

necessary for the reflection of reality to appear in the mind, but by

themselves they are not sufficient. There must be reality beyond it.

Because reality is timelessly present, the stress is on the necessary

conditions.

 

Q: Can it happen that the mind is clear and quiet and yet no reflection

appears?

 

M: There is destiny to consider. The unconscious is in the grip of

destiny; it is destiny, in fact. One may have to wait. But however heavy

may be the hand of destiny, it can be lifted by patience and self-control.

Integrity and purity remove the obstacles and the vision of reality appears

in the mind.

 

Q: How does one gain self-control? I am so weak-minded!

 

M: Understand first that you are not the person you believe yourself to be.

What you must think yourself to be is mere suggestion or imagination. You

have no parents, you were not born, nor will you die. Either trust me when

I tell you so, or arrive to it by study and investigation. The way of

total faith is quick, the other is slow but steady. Both must be tested in

action. Act on what you think is true -- this is the way to truth.

 

Q: Are deserving the truth and destiny one and the same?

 

M: yes, both are in the unconscious. Conscious merit is mere vanity.

Consciousness is always of obstacles; when there are no obstacles, one goes

beyond it.

 

Q: Will the understanding that I am not the body give me the strength of

character needed for self-control?

 

M: When you know that you are neither body nor mind, you will not be swayed

by them. You will follow truth, wherever it takes you, and do what needs

to be done, whatever the price to pay.

 

Q: Is action essential for self-realization?

 

M: For realization, understanding is essential. Action is only incidental.

A man of steady understanding will not refrain from action. Action is the

test of truth.

 

Q: Are tests needed?

 

M: If you do not test yourself all the time, you will not be able to

distinguish between reality and fancy. Observation and close reasoning

help to some extent, but reality is paradoxical. How do you know that you

have realized unless you watch your thoughts and feelings, words and

actions and wonder at the changes occurring in you without your knowing why

and how? It is exactly because they are so surprising that you know that

they are real. The foreseen and expected is rarely true.

 

Q: How does the person come into being?

 

M: Exactly as a shadow appears when light is intercepted by the body, so

does the person arise when pure self-awareness is obstructed by the 'I

am-the-body', idea. And as the shadow changes shape and position according

to the lay of the land, so does the person appear to rejoice and suffer,

rest and toil, find and lose according to the pattern of destiny. When the

body is no more, the person disappears completely without return, only the

witness remains and the Great Unknown.

 

The witness is that which says 'I know'. The person says 'I do'. Now, to

say 'I know' is not untrue -- it is merely limited. But to say 'I do' is

altogether false, because there is nobody who does; all happens by itself,

including the idea of being a doer.

 

Q: Then what is action?

 

M: The universe is full of action, but there is no actor. There are

numberless persons small and big and very big, who, through

identification, imagine themselves as acting, but it does not change the

fact that the world of action (mahadakash) is one single whole in which all

depends on, and affects all. The stars affect us deeply and we affect the

stars. Step back from action to consciousness, leave action to the body

and the mind; it is their domain. Remain as pure witness, till even

witnessing dissolves in the Supreme.

 

Imagine a thick jungle full of heavy timber. A plank is shaped out of the

timber and a small pencil to write on it. The witness reads the writing

and knows that while the pencil and the plank are distantly related to the

jungle, the writing has nothing to do with it. It is totally super-imposed

and its disappearance just does not matter. The dissolution of personality

is followed always by a sense of great relief, as if a heavy burden has

fallen off.

 

Q: When you say that, I am the state beyond the witness, what is the

experience that makes you say so? In what way does it differ from the

stage of being a witness only?

 

M: It is like washing printed cloth. First the design fades, then the

background and in the end the cloth is plain white. The personality gives

place to the witness, then the witness goes and pure awareness remains.

The cloth was white in the beginning and is white in the end; the patterns

and colours just happened -- for a time.

 

Q: Can there be awareness without an object of awareness?

 

M: Awareness with an object we call witnessing. When there is also

self-identification with the object, caused by desire or fear, such a state

is called a person. In reality there is only one state; when distorted by

self-identification it is called a person, when coloured with the sense of

being, it is the witness; when colourless and limiteless, it is called the

Supreme.

 

Q: I find that I am always restless, longing, hoping, seeking, finding,

enjoying, abandoning, searching again. What is it that keeps me on the boil?

 

M: You are really in search of yourself, without knowing it. You are

love-longing for the love-worthy, the perfectly lovable. Due to ignorance

you are looking for it in the world of opposites and contradictions. When

you find it within, your search will be over.

 

Q: There will always be this sorrowful world to contend with.

 

M: Don't anticipate. You do not know. It is true that all manifestation

is in the opposites. Pleasure and pain, good and bad, high and low,

progress and regress, rest and strife -- they all come and go together --

and as long as there is a world, its contradictions will be there. There

may also be perfect harmony, of bliss and beauty, but only for a time.

What is perfect, returns to the source of all perfection and the opposites

play on.

 

Q: How am I to reach perfection?

 

M: Keep quiet. Do your work in the world, but inwardly keep quiet. Then

all will come to you. Don not rely on your work for realization. It may

profit others, but not you. Your hope lies in keeping silent in your mind

and quiet in your heart. Realized people are very quiet.

 

.... Transcribed by Omkara ...

 

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